As I learnt more about the men behind the space program, with its origins in ballistic missile technology and dreams of intercontinental domination, my feelings about "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." were muddied.

How often have I thought that ignorance is bliss?

I was never an easy-living believer, I asked too many questions, damn it.

I still remember the enthusiasm I felt for the internet and its promise.

I learnt later how it emerged from military programs related to the atomic bomb.

My feelings about "One small click for man, one giant open enclyopaedia for mankind." have been muddied.

I have mixed feelings about "Open Education", I would like to pay tribute to friends, to fellow thinkers and doers from around the world who have become co-learners and kindred spirits to me.

I would like to celebrate the warmth, intelligence, goodwill and generosity of people that I have met in the "Open Education" movement.

I would like to celebrate the desire for questioning and openness of people such as those at the OER17 conference.

I would like to celebrate people's undying enthusiasm for working towards a more equitable world.

When I read what I write at times, I feel that I am seeing things too darkly.

I don't think that that is the case.

I feel things darkly.

I feel things brightly.

I think things over.

So with this in mind.

I shall remain ever pragmatist, idealistic but critical.

I shall note down a few a pistes for future reflection.

Here are one or two from Catherine Cronin and Laura Czerniewicz's presentation:

First a Martin Weller quoted here:

Critical pragmatism, yes, I would agree with that.

I am not sure about the "Keeping calm" sentiment.

I feel that we can remain critically pragmatic even if we are not calm.

2 comments:

Simon. I'm a historian, too. I've been aggregating links to articles about poverty, injustice, etc. as well as articles about collaboration and innovation since going on the internet in 1998. Many of these links break over time and I need to search the internet to find the articles, or discard them from my library.

I wrote a couple of articles in the past few days about how Adobe Flash is no longer being supported, meaning projects done by interns in the late 2000s, using flash animation, are no longer viewable. I found a work-around, by downloading a swfplayer. And I found a way to record the presentations, using my phone camera, and post them to YouTube. Thus, I've preserved that bit of history. I wrote about this at https://tutormentorexchange.wordpress.com/2017/04/09/loss-of-flash-animation-disaster-for-small-innovators/ and posted my video at http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2017/04/flash-animations-by-interns-no-longer.html

If we don't preserve the past, how can the future learn from our experiences (good and bad).

Hi Daniel. I spent hours on flash stuff. I've written it off. I don't think people learn very easily. People keep making the same mistakes. That's why writers like the Greeks or Shakespeare are still relevant today.